


i woke up today because i

by carlemon



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: As Nice As They Get Admittedly Not Very Nice, Canon-Typical Dickery, Developing Relationship, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 05:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12574252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carlemon/pseuds/carlemon
Summary: It's as nice as they get.(In which Henry attempts to initiate.)





	i woke up today because i

**Author's Note:**

> trying to finish my reread of the novel before gettin my claws into the losers' club; meanwhile, here's patrick and henry being as cute as i can make them without outright beating both canons into the dirt

" _Queer._ " 

He may as well have just announced he was fucking Butch; he may as well have just shot Henry in the goddamn arm. He figures, rightly, that the latter's more appropriate: for all his predatory posing, ruminates Patrick, Henry is a prey animal, quick as a whip to bare his teeth and pretend he's not pissing himself in uncertainty and dread; the whiplash on him is unbelievable, all wide eyes and scowling mouth and the collar of Patrick's shirt bunched into his bloody-knuckled grip in less the time it takes Patrick to expel one shuddery breath.

"—What'd you say?"

Patrick smiles idly, lips feeling heavy 'round the white white jags of his grin. He makes himself comfortable, —may as well, if Henry's going to try and fucking murder him— shifting off his left leg, previously crossed under his right, to recline over the couch, and cocks his head into the burst upholstery, turning his cheek into the stuffing. "You heard me. You full queer or something now, Bowers?" —Radiating from it, the stench of fear is sweet and cloying: a plum-smell, matching the ripe purple of the bruise smattered over Henry's cheekbone and seeping upwards. Wringing his wrist on a whim from where it rests, folded, in his lap, Patrick thumbs the corner of Henry's eye where its vibrance fades into sunburn and freckling, pressing a little harder than what he knows Henry'll find comfortable, just to see if he'll leave an indent.

 _Soft boy,_ though the thought itself is some form of dark comedy. A — _dire_ — miracle Patrick hasn't taken him apart yet. No harm done— it seems that Henry's committed to doing it himself, this time. 

He makes a fist and Patrick leers keenly, ready for the hit. He's— admittedly less than ready for the capitulation that sweeps across Henry's furious features instead, a force of nature in itself, stealing all the fight from him as violently as a wildfire stamped and throttled out; a building collapsing in on itself. _(He may as well have just shot Henry in the goddamn head.)_ The fist comes undone— though, not without force: tendons bulge and ripple across the taut back of his hand, threatening rupture, before Henry relents, shoving him back into the couch but seemingly unable to bring himself to let go of him. Patrick watches him seethe and bristle curiously, bare foot tapping against the musty garage carpet to try and shake out the pins and needles. 

"I'm just trying—" Henry starts, all mangled out his grit teeth. His fingers work the fabric of Patrick's collar, scrunching it through with sweat. For a second it looks like he'll take the easy way out —it's _sick_  that he hasn't taken it already— and shove Patrick away nursing a slugged jaw but otherwise unscathed, but he's been sitting on his folded-up legs since noon, and seems to be aware he can't shift without crumbling entirely. What a picture that'd be: Henry Bowers, scourge of Derry, crushed into the filthy carpet, itching for Patrick to throw him a bone, anything. He screws up his nose, sharp-edged and feral in Patrick's face. Patrick smiles blithely back. 

"Fuck you, Hockstetter," he manages eventually, blotchy and red in the cheeks. "— _Fuck yourself._ I'm just. Trying, let me— _fuck you_ , Hockstetter." He chokes on it, mouth an unrelenting stiff line, almost too tight to breathe through. Snickering, Patrick releases him to rake his free hand over the back of the couch, the picture of smug serenity, and Henry flinches, eyes cloudy and brow a furrowed mess of palpable tension. "Let me fucking do this," he spits, one hand dragging down Patrick's shirt, popping out the buttons one by one, the other a rigid claw of indecision by his thigh. " _You_ wanted it. You—"

Unsurprisingly, Patrick chooses to kick the dog— and what a kick it is, all sly, slippery, tongue curling smugly 'round his answering croon, drawing it out taut. "You were gonna kiss me, Bowers." _(Like some full homo, Henry; like some full fucking faggot, waiting and wanting and wanting, rutting against Patrick's stretched-out leg.)_ (Not an unpleasant line of thought.) He leers wide enough to cleave in two his chapped lips, tongue darting out to run along the edges of his teeth. Henry's eyes follow the movement, though not entirely voluntarily. "You want it that bad?" (You want _me_ , Henry?) _(I'm not scared of you.)_

 _Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin._ Henry looks like he'd rather slit his own throat with the broken-off end of a beer bottle than say what Patrick knows; somewhat detachedly, Patrick muses that he's unsure what he finds the most entertaining: Henry's unblinking eyes, full of loathing and meaning, the jitter of his curled-up hand, or the fact that this is all happening in the airless squalid dark of the Hockstetters' garage. Neither of them are drunk enough for this lapse of character to be anything but hilariously outlandish— Patrick only drank when alone, and Henry had put his beer away by his feet a little while before trying to kiss him.

Henry opens his mouth, making a dead-fish face. Whatever he's going to say is stolen from him by the approaching growl of an engine, purring, cat-like, down both their spines. He goes so tense Patrick could put a pin and him and he'd burst; freezes up like he expects the Trans Am to pull into Patrick's garage, or, better yet, Patrick's father. Butch himself, even. Patrick slides his arm back over the front of the couch to prop himself up on his chin, regarding Henry with a sleazy little half-smile, noting the ragged rise and fall of his chest. The plum, fruit-smell intensifies. Patrick could sink his teeth into Henry and come away tasting _peaches_.

He kind of wants to. Curling the hand that isn't fisted into Patrick's shirt over the edge of the sofa-seat, Henry shifts uncomfortably, miserably, still perched atop his legs. "Fuck you," he rasps, but still doesn't hit Patrick. That alone is bizarrely hilarious, in a sad sort of way.  _(They finally get you into counselling, Henry? Into the fucking loony bin?)_ (Hell, they haven't even got  _Patrick_ yet.) His voice is quiet, not quite measured but not quite strained either when he scrubs his mouth with the back of his hand and hisses, desperately— "let me have this."

Patrick's serpent's-tongue goes slack, lecherous little grin suddenly dead-weight. "Let me have this," Henry repeats. He doesn't growl or snarl it or anything, and Patrick doesn't smile, — _are you shitting me Bowers—_ but lifts his bone idle hand from his lap anyways to fold one clammy palm over Henry's when he makes to relinquish Patrick's shirt. Mosquitoes whine overhead, drawn by an easy meal, all the blood in Henry's face. Patrick wets his bottom lip with his tongue, pricking half-moon marks into Henry's hand with bitten nails.

 _Derelict_ is the word that comes to mind when Henry raises his head to look at him. _Shambling_. Kicked-puppy-like. Patrick strokes the crests of his bruised knuckles out of habit, lax. He's not one to show mercy, but the air tastes like honey, each breath heat-heavy in his lungs, the space between them fecund in the way that a carcass gives rise to maggots, and sooner or later one of them is going to have to give. Henry looks like if he yields one more time he'll either implode or wither away entirely, dust in the unmoving air. 

Patrick offers him this. (He _gives_ him this.) "Alright," he says, grinning around it. "Alright. 's yours." He slides his chin off his fist, pressed by the cheek into the sofa again. Henry eyes him warily and he snickers coquettishly, the sound mellow, lilting and almost as high as the whine of the mosquitoes that collect in droves around them. "Queer."

"Shut the fuck up," snaps Henry, the loosening of his hold on Patrick almost imperceptible. Patrick eases his nails from where they dig into his own palm, coaxing Henry out of shredding himself into little pieces, stitching the two of them together, and snickers again. He can taste syrup between them.

"C'mon, Bowers. It's yours."

" _Fuck_ yeah it is. You wanted it." Henry, go figure, is a closed-eye kisser and as a result almost misses him when he surges forward, just managing to kiss the corner of Patrick's mouth with his hard-lined scowl. Laughing breathily into his lips, Patrick can't bring himself to mind.

**Author's Note:**

> title from a softer world 1245 (we don't need words):  
>  _hey, i'm liking your photos at 2am because i want to make out. i'm texting you at noon because i want to make out. i woke up today because i_


End file.
